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So everyone's heard me note this for awhile. Either as "canon-friendly characters", or similar terms. This post is here to clarify my plans for those who wish to utilize the system. Please note that this system is intended for those who wish to delve their characters into the world and be shaped by it. They are held to a higher standard than traditional "hop in the game and just roleplay", akin to those familiar with the intended purpose of the old Nation Head roleplay characters in older renditions of A'therys.
Choosing not to utilize this system does not affect the "My Timeline" feature Sellt plans to initiate, nor your ability to use it. In fact, the two systems cross-section in several cases, and you may see similarities in the plans for both. With introductions aside, I now present a brief summary on Player Characters.
Player Characters
A player character is a player-made character that has been approved as canon-friendly. These characters may be found in the official A’therys Wiki, and will be denoted with a header stub that they are an active player character, rather than a canon story NPC.
How Do I Make One?
A player-character is created via a “player character approval” form, submitted and approved by the Loremaster + 1 Lantern; or 3 Lanterns
Any player-character must meet the following criteria to be approved as canon-friendly :
All characters must be OC [Original Characters]
Do not bend or port characters from other stories.
A character ripped directly from their original source will result in a 1 month suspension of future applications.
A player may only have one Player-Character; and may not have an additional on an alternate minecraft account.
A player using an alternate account who is caught doing so will have both player characters revoked from further updates in the Wiki.
Well-written background
IE: Avoiding Mary-Sues.
Naming convention matches their nationality.
Not having a Daidamese character named Bob Smith
In addition - will not accept player-characters from eastern nationalities (Alor, etc.)
Player will be given a [[Destiny]]
Choose either a ‘Past Haunt’, ‘Present Situation’ or ‘Cryptic Future’
These will likely be a lot of generic ones; with some tailored in with the character's nation
Example of a "present" one :
"You have recently been inundated by odd looks, curses, and the occasional challenge to a duel."
So say the player might decide that a notorious bandit looks like them, and they are paying for his mistakes; and they develop their roleplay initially around that.
An example of a nation specific one: Daidama:
"Your cousin is a member of the Justices, and wants you to join."
Maybe they decide that they sought this cousin for aid; and his aid has a price; the price being "join up with the justices"
Examples of “Cryptic Futures”
The black messenger will fall.
Beware the one who loves you most.
Miracles do happen, as you shall see.
There is very little that cannot be undone.
Examples of “Past Haunts”
Your father was a respected officer, and he saw to it that you had every opportunity to follow in his footsteps.
No longer able to cope with the horrors she has seen, your lovely younger sister has retreated into a world that exists only within her mind.
Long ago you were beaten badly at what you do best. Worse yet, the person who showed you up was a good friend of yours.
In the end, Destinies are a Rorschach Test type deal; it's vague enough to be a situation - but open ended enough to be interpreted in a lot of creative ways.
Sounds Great! What do I do once I have a player-character?
Once your player character is in the wiki; you may archive your activities in roleplay; and write up a summary of your events in an “Update Report”
An update report is posted on the forum, and approved by 2 Lanterns.
Update Reports should be written either as a summary of events which can be transcribed into a wiki article, or written in paragraph form by the player wishing to update.
All update reports for a Player Character will be on a specific forum topic denoted to that Player Character; ensuring that all their updates are in one location.
Update Reports are subject to the following criteria :
Any mentioned interaction with another Player Character must have either written consent from the other player; or proof of said action (Screenshot, tabbychat log, etc.)
Any claims of titles or achievements must be confirmed : either by witness or via the My Story feature on their profile.
Mentions of non-canon names (IE: town of Alabasta) may be removed from updates, depending on name and copyright infridngement.
Approved update reports will be added to the player-character’s wiki entry!
Okay, so what are the benefits?
Your story goes into the Wiki as an entry; which includes Linking Names. As a canon-friendly character, actions in Storyline Events are noted and updated. To any that server as nation head, this includes notation of the position. Plus: You get this nifty side-bar!

HAPPY WIKI-ENTRY WEDNESDAY!!!
Added History of Daidama to the Wiki. It can also be accessed by clicking the Daidama icon from the lorelanding.
- History of Daidama conceptualization by @GodOfGales, original draft written by @Xathas, assisted with edits from @Dani, @Razrivon, and @RuddyF

An unnerving argument is underway within the Temple Palace between a woman not so often seen an a man of prominent Selukkite politics. Screams are heard from the man from inside, one could only imagine the untolerable pain he was doing through. Slowly over the course of an hour, a crowed of Selukkites, foreign diplomats, and tradesmen gather below the main balcony where Raviyna av-Kulthanz once so eerily made her claim to the Ivory Throne. Among the crowed is members of a unique family, fixing thier eyes upon the great entrance to the palace. Akila, Harath Khelazar, Chadimus, worrily anticipate the outcome of the argument. There in the brighness of the setting sun behind the walls of Qhul, Regent-High Priestess, the immortal sorceress, Raviyna av-Kulthanz emerged and so blissfully walked to the steps of the balcony. She elegantly lifted her hand in force, and there flying through the air was the Vizier himself; finally falling to the ground of the balcony. One such seen amongst many, ironicly different every time. Raviyna says her piece...

Well, it's finally here. Officially, at any rate, apparently we weren't trying all that hard to keep it locked down before yesterday. Because last night is when I threw the switch and sent the A'therian Archives live from the forums. Thanks so much to @Nathan for his help on the coding side! Inside, you'll find the world of A'therys, with a lot of knowledge and a few secrets. Later today, once I've added the page won by our top donator @Sellt, I'll have 160 pages up there for you. That's significantly more than before, particularly since I culled a lot of pages before adding new. Now, since we're talking about what's better about this new implementation, let's break it down:
Better Categories! You all care about your nations most, so navigation is primarily centered around them.
Better Navigation! So much easier to use, just click the page you care about in standard drill-down menu fashion.
Better Mobile! Yep, the thing auto-formats to smaller screens, just like the site. Try it on your phone, it's a really nice experience.
Official Cities! I've had people asking me about this one for literal years. I'm sure you care more about your own towns, but here these are.
Site Integration! My personal favorite, the whole thing is displayed without you ever leaving the website. Looks nice, plays nice, no mess.
I'm sure there's more but those five things are what spring to mind at the moment. To go see it for yourself, you can either click the big "A'therian Archives" menu button up there, or you can hover over it then click the "Official Lore" button that pops up, either one works. I hope you enjoy!
-OA

Hey there everyone! OccidentalAnvil here, maybe a fresh face for some of you newcomers, welcome by the way! Been awhile since I've shown up in the News section; last time was probably over a year ago with the Summer Rime. Well, I figured that's been long enough, particularly with the whole "check back soon" emblem spinning on in the Official Lore part of our lovely new site. I wanted to come tell you guys what's been going on in my neck of the woods in brief, then get to the actual news so I'm not off-topic. So let's have a chat, shall we?
A little over a week ago, I managed to trick one of the world's top engineering schools into giving me a bachelor's degree. It was a long con, some five years, but it was worth it I'd say. Regardless, as you might imagine, with the server launching on the eve of my final exams (how we manage to do that every damn time, 3 for 3, I will never know) and my subsequent graduation, I've had significantly less time to write than I really planned. And boy, do I have plans, but we'll get to those in a minute. Anyway, I know it's a pain to play on a server that advertises heavy RP, and to try to write your own works in line with that, without having any of the official material! Trust me, it's painful and embarrassing from my perspective, especially when I had it all up on the old site. But a few months before EVO launched, I started a new project, which I've been referring to as Project Triple-A internally. You don't need to worry about that so much, other than what it means for the near term: I did not want to just release the same-old drivel from the wiki. Most of it was hopelessly ancient, just not the quality or the content I wanted you to have, and some of it was flat out wrong. It was written forever ago, and updated little by little, but with Project Triple-A I needed to tear the band-aid off. To rewrite everything, to bring the content in line with what A'therys really is now.
And so that's where I am. I'm not going to put anything on this awesome new site that isn't A'therys, the real A'therys. Obviously I will continue to tweak and adjust, but when I tell you that an awful lot has been changed and solidified, I mean it. I want to make sure that what gets posted in the Official section now will see minimal changes in the future. So I can't lie to you anymore, or keep things from you. And I damn well can't sugar-coat it so it fits all pretty with Minecraft; that's up to you guys as RPers, to take what you want and do with it as you will. A'therys has guns and swords, electricity and magic, men and gods. This may all seem scary, just writing that kinda freaked me out a little, but bear with me. Take a look when it comes down the line. I think you'll recognize A'therys immediately, just with a much more cohesive theme.
Anyway, the news. I don't want to drop all that heavy stuff on you with a wave of my hand and just disappear. First, dates: do not expect anything before the New Year, to be sure, but I'm gonna be booking it thereafter to get you your content ASAP. I am pushing for 36 pages, 6 for each nation; those needed the biggest expansion and rewrite, and I figure that content is the most important stuff to you guys right now. A lot of the content after that can actually be just updated from before, so after the first set of a paltry 36 drops the old-new stuff will hit the site reasonably fast. Way faster than my slow ass is going now. I want to say the end of January, but I also don't want to say something I'll miss; I ALSO don't want to take that long, it'd be crazy. So just pretend I said nothing and wait for more words, sound good? Good. Now, I want to show you what all this means in actual terms. It's one thing to say "lots of new, new content!" and go silent for a month. So, here.
So that above is the old wiki content for the "Aloreh" page. It had a super sparing history, basic geography, some societal musings, and that was about it. I took out the headings to make it easier to see, there wasn't really much. Now, look below.
Now, each nation is a category. The category will hold a page on History (which is longer than the old page was as a whole, you can see it there in the top right four images), Geography, Culture, Theology, Technology, and Government. Every page you see above was expanded to fit my current perception of Aloreh, the exact same coverage as the old page, just up to date.
I hope now you'll see what I'm going for, and why it's taking so long. That doesn't excuse it, but it should give you an idea of where we're headed. I hope you'll join me in being excited for the coming content. Anvil out.
-OA

Introduction
So you want to write some Community Lore, do you? Well excellent! It's a great way to get involved in A'therys, and it can be a lot of fun too. But before you get started, there's a couple things to go over. We'll start at the beginning - what is it? How do you do it? Why should you? After having cleared that, we'll talk about what constitutes a good piece, the process for actually getting it posted, and of course the actual rules and regulations surrounding the whole thing. Yes, there are rules; of course you can't just go and write about absolutely anything you want. This is A'therys, after all, a living world which already has a framework. We'll talk about how you can best take advantage of that framework, where the wiggle room is, and even how to deal with the works of others when writing your own. A lot to take in, but hey, that's what these guides are for! Anyway, I think that's enough foreground bluster, let's get going.
Overview
Community Lore is a feature I've long wanted to include for our players, and now it's here. It provides a smooth, categorized location for you as a community member to post your own stories, articles, entries, or any other such appropriate material (more on that in a bit). Your posting is then reviewed by a member of the Scribes, a player organization dedicated to roleplaying on the server and forums. This isn't really the place to talk about them specifically, but I will discuss what you should expect from them with regards to lore approval towards the end of this guide. Ignoring that for a moment, once your piece has been approved, it is posted for all to read and enjoy! Now, this process does not "canonize" your lore, in either the fictional nor the saintly sense. Canon lore, meaning official lore, is posted in its own section as written by me. But that lore mostly discusses things that have happened in the past, or provides information about the present. In short, it does not necessarily affect the day-to-day play of you all in the server. It instead provides a framework for you to write with and play inside. Without it, there would be no server, but that does not mean that canon lore is all there is. With Community Lore, you have the opportunity to tell your own tales, to discuss the current happenings on the server as they are molded and shaped by you.
Where to Start
Well, you're going to want to start by playing the game of course! Make something happen, or be someone cool! Tell your story, or the story of something you caused, or something you were intimately involved in. Have a neat history for yourself? Or maybe you've got a town with a storied past? Are you the historian for a fun organization? Maybe there was an event that you were a key figure in. Odds are, if it happened in server roleplay, it has a place in Community Lore. But just playing in the server may not be enough for a really solid piece. I strongly recommend you dig through the Official Lore section of the site to see what structure you may want to reference or abide by. It is your best resource for keeping lore friendly, besides of course sending @OccidentalAnvil (that's me!) a PM here on the forums. But I try to cut down on my mail, so while I'm happy to answer questions I'd prefer it if you'd seek the answers where I traditionally post them. Once you've got the subject you want to write about and an understanding of the world in which it exists, you're ready to write!
Rules for Writing
Naturally there's some rules you need to be aware of when writing, so let's get those out of the way. They're fairly straightforward, and hopefully designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. But they have to be in place, lest we start losing track of what this place is (a forum for discussing and building upon the world of A'therys) and people start to get confused. Without further ado, the rules, which I reserve the right to amend at any time.
Vulgarities are explicitly disallowed. I absolutely understand that even fictional adults are liable to say adult things, and that may seem to add realism, but keep in mind that we do entertain all ages here in A'therys. Also remember that we are a global community, and the words you may consider relatively harmless in your country could carry very different meanings elsewhere. So use your best judgement, and you feel that swearing is absolutely necessary in your piece, use that excuse to be creative in your alternative!
The subject matter must be strictly A'therian! Your work must take place in A'therys from start to finish, and probably should not reference any other planes but it. If you can skillfully use the other planes known to exist, you are welcome to, but do remember (and this is a good general rule) that the more extreme references you pull together the more likely you are to stumble somewhere. There is nothing wrong with that, per these rules, but tying too many leads together can simply trip you up in the details and make the piece weaker overall.
Your primary characters can only be human. A'therys is a world of humans, and the server is only able to display a human form. It is true that there are other sentient humanoids in the official lore, but in the server you do not have the option to play as one of them so neither are you able to claim their heritage in your Community Lore. You may involve them if you do so carefully, just as you may involve a god or dragon known to still be a part of the mortal plane. But you may not write yourself as anything except human. By this same line of reasoning, apotheosis is disallowed. Of course, the addendum to all this is that you may be stark raving mad: it is acceptable to discuss anything from the above that you wish so long as you make it clear that your character is deluded in some way. Get creative!
Do not reference other player lore in your piece without explicit permission from those people. Of course this rule does not include works written by me, @OccidentalAnvil, no matter where you found it. If I wrote it, you're good! But when you mention someone else's work, you need to have talked to them first and gotten clearance to do so. Because this will be checked: as part of the Scribes' review process, they will reach out via PM to the author of the piece you reference, regardless of how you've referenced their work. They will respond "yes" or "no" when asked if you cleared it with them, and only then will the Scribes continue reviewing the piece for display. Note that a lack of timely response (defined at their discretion) to the PM will also constitute a "no," so have them be on the lookout to help you!
You may not explicitly disagree with posted canon lore. There is some inherent leeway, wherein you can fudge certain things simply due to the lack of information on many topics. But if the Official Lore repository states one thing, and you state another, that conflicts with this rule. The one caveat here is in retroactively illegitimized writings: if you write a piece that conflicts with no lore, but then I write an official piece that happens to undermine its integrity, the piece will not be taken down. I reserve the right to modify the lore as I see fit for the health and effect of the story, and while I do so with increasing infrequency it does still happen on rare occasions. Do not expect this to occur, but be aware that it can.
You may not create any new gods or nations while claiming them to be real. This is explicitly my domain for a good many reasons, but for this rule it will simply be disallowed to keep it easy. The bolded emphasis in the rule is to allow for the tail end of Rule #3 to apply: if you're crazy, you're in the clear. Want to worship a weird imaginary god, or claim to come from a far off silly land? You're welcome to do so, but please remember to make it extremely apparent in some way that the character referencing these things in each work is not of sound mind.
So that's it, the six rules to remember. Pretty easy and straightforward, if I do say so myself. Like I said, trying not to be overly constrictive with them, but there are a few things I need to keep out of community domain for continuity and coherence reasons. I hope you can understand this. But hey, now that you're through with the boring rules, you can write!
Writing for the Community
This section is really just my personal suggestions for writing something that will turn out nice. It's not rules, it's barely even guidelines. But I want to make sure you're aware of the wonderful resource we have for getting better right here on the forums: your peers! Particularly, the Community Lore Discussion subforum linked there. It's possible that you may have even come to find this guide from the pinned link there. Regardless, that is your workshop; as you craft your piece for final review, I highly encourage you to work on it in the forums there and invite others to discuss it with you. They may offer insight you hadn't thought of, or even just help you learn to write better. It is an invaluable wringer to run your content through before submitting it to the Scribes in the database, so give it a shot. The results may surprise you.
The Review Process
And now, the moment you've been waiting for. You've crafted a beautiful piece of Community Lore that abides by all the rules, and now it's time to submit it! The actual submitting of the work is not difficult: simply go to the correct section of the Community Lore database and use the normal editor to post it. Once it's been submitted, you just have to be patient. What happens after that is that the Scribes will assign one of their members to your work, and it is they who will review it. I will leave it to their management to describe how that all works in another place and time, but the gist is fairly straightforward. They will check your work for basic spelling and grammar, editing only these things and very lightly if at all, and run it through the rules listed above. If you catch a strike on any of them, expect them to contact you via forum PM to begin the steps to resolving the issue. Finally, they will check and make sure it has been posted to the most reasonable database location, and move it if not. After that, they'll push the lore piece live! Then everyone will be able to see it and comment on it. The five-star ratings system is currently disabled for the Community Lore database (it is the same system you can see here in the Guides database), but may be turned on at a later time if it seems desirable. For now though, write without fear of demonstrable judgement from your readers.
What Happens Next
Congratulations, you've got one of your pieces approved to Community Lore! That wasn't so hard, was it? So at this point perhaps you're wondering... now what? Well, unless you do something about it, frankly nothing. You're in, welcome to the club, hurray and all that. But, you might, say, write another piece. And another. Once you're comfortable with the system, all paths are open to you (within the confines of the rules of course), provided you just get up and walk them. Remember, there is no limit to the number of frequency of submissions you make, so get writing. I'll be watching.